🇨🇳⚡️ China’s “artificial sun” moves closer to generating fusion power

China has completed and commissioned the main research complex for its BEST nuclear fusion project in Hefei, while assembly of the reactor itself is now more than halfway complete.

Assembly of the reactor itself is already more than halfway finished. Engineers have now entered the most difficult phase, installing the vacuum vessel, thermal shielding, superconducting toroidal magnets, and precision internal components in a four-layer structure designed to confine ultra-hot plasma.

BEST is scheduled for completion by the end of 2027 and is designed to conduct deuterium-tritium burning-plasma experiments producing 20–200 MW of fusion power while pursuing a substantial net energy gain.

The next target is around 2030, when China plans fusion power-generation demonstrations intended to test whether controlled fusion can move beyond experimental plasma records and actually produce usable electricity.

👉 That timeline matters beyond the energy sector. The global AI race is increasingly becoming a race for electricity: the IEA expects data-center power consumption to more than double by 2030, with China and the US accounting for nearly 80% of global growth. AI is expected to be the main driver of that surge.

BEST will not power China’s current AI boom, but Beijing is building toward a future in which computing capacity, advanced industry, and energy supply become increasingly interconnected.

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